Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 



about Political Economy, it is obvious that satis- 

 factory results in that science must depend im- 

 mensely on the high degree of social instinct and 

 feeling with which the student approaches it, 

 and on the thoroughness of his acquaintance with 

 the actual life of a people ; and that the develop- 

 ment of these factors is fully as important a 

 part of the science as that which consists in the 

 logical ordering and arrangement of the material 

 obtained. 



I need not, I think, go any further into detail 

 of new methods in each Science. You remem- 

 ber what I said at the beginning about the Cell 

 studying the Body of which it formed a part. We 

 may imagine, if we like, three stages in this process. 

 In the first stage the Cell regards the other cells 

 and the Body simply from the point of view of 

 how they affect //, and its comfort and safety. 

 This might be taken to correspond to the Old- 

 time Science. In the second stage the Cell, with 

 its tiny experience of the other cells and the small 

 part of the body in which it is placed, becomes 

 highly intellectual, and professes to lay down the 

 laws of the structure of the body generally. This 

 corresponds to the attitude of Modern Science. 

 In the third stage the Cell, growing and evolving, 

 and coming daily into closer sympathetic relation- 

 ship with all parts of the body, begins to find its 

 true relation to the other cells, not to use them^ 

 but to fulfil its part in the whole. Gradually 

 drawing all the threads together and coming 

 more and more, so to say, into a central position, 



240 



